Did all of those who met Joseph Smith believe his message?
An early Church member, Edward Stevenson, was concerned that few of his neighbors responded to the Prophet's message, which he had embraced. "The fact that so few received his testimony caused me, for a time, to greatly marvel. But when I looked back to the period when Jesus and His chosen Twelve and Seventies labored, with all their might, for the salvation of a fallen world, even with all manner of signs following their labors, and saw how few believed in or embraced their testimony in that day of mighty power, when even the grave was robbed of its victims and the dead commanded to come forth and live, and that while the dead lived the living were dead; yea, when I saw and meditated upon these things, I became somewhat reconciled" (Edward Stevenson, Reminiscences of Joseph the Prophet, [1893], 4).
Why did some people decline to follow the Prophet Joseph Smith?
The same issues that caused some to reject Joseph Smith fuel the continued rejection of current living prophets. As Joseph explained, "Men are naturally disposed to walk in their own paths as they are pointed out by their own fingers and are not willing to consider and walk in the path which is pointed out by another, . . . although he should be an unerring director, and the Lord his God sent him" (History of the Church, 1:408).
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